


maybe we should see other people.

by cp035



Category: Figure Skating RPF, Olympics RPF
Genre: F/M, Gen, Male-Female Friendship, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-11
Updated: 2014-03-11
Packaged: 2018-01-15 10:24:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1301482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cp035/pseuds/cp035
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>17 years of working with just one other person, and it's no surprise Meryl and Charlie both aren't used to their new dance partners.</p>
            </blockquote>





	maybe we should see other people.

**Author's Note:**

> Jumping on the Meryl/Charlie fic bandwagon! You all know you ship it, too. 
> 
> Anyway, this is a fluff piece, and not necessarily shippy, but if that's your thing, it could definitely go that way, too. It's on AO3, so you all know it's really not canon, but it just *might* be possible. I mean, I don't even know if they like Harry Potter, but it's fic, so why not? 
> 
> Hope you guys like it!

 

 

"I'm _really_ sorry.", Charlie pleaded, grimacing. He and his partner were lying on the floor of the dance studio they'd rented out to practice their routine for the next week.

 

Sharna sat up, and took a careful sip from her water bottle, swishing the water around in her mouth before swallowing. "Oh, it's fine, dear. Really. My ass is going to be sore tomorrow, but it's fine. It happens.", she told him with a tired smile.

 

"I'm mostly sorry for the other thing I said. I didn't mean that you were um… _heavy._ "

 

She chuckled and cocked a finger at the cameraman in the corner, who was sitting behind his tripod reading an issue of The Hollywood Reporter, oblivious to their rehearsal. The editors could take care of that. "Listen up Brian, this is gonna be a hilarious story!", she laughed.

 

"Mmm hmmm." Brian flipped a page in his magazine.

 

"Oh, you."

 

Sharna turned back to Charlie. "Char, it's fine! Trust me, if I was fat, I would know- and I would never hear the end of it! It's alright, you're used to lifting Meryl, and she's _tiny_. We'll get it eventually!"

 

"Okay." Charlie nodded.

 

He was at a loss when it came to actually talking to Sharna. She was loud, and funny, sure, but he'd gotten used to Meryl, who let him fill the silence with bad jokes and stories about his buddies when she wasn't riding him to practice their twizzle sequence or tighten up a lift. Occasionally, Meryl teased him and when they carpooled to the rink and had a small lunch sitting on the bleachers, she told him about her girlfriends, all of whom he saw around school. Meryl was familiar, and being with her felt nice.

 

Sharna was bitingly funny, and had plenty of Australian girlfriends who did weird things, like _vajazzle_ , which Charlie had texted Tanith right away was going to be a dealbreaker. She was always complimenting him, even when Charlie knew from all the ballroom videos Meryl kept texting him that he'd messed up on a quickstep and was three steps behind her.

 

Sharna was touchy, too. She liked ruffling his hair and flicking his ear and rubbing his arms. It wasn't flirty touching (at least Charlie didn't _think_ so) but it still made him oddly uncomfortable.

 

Meryl never did that. She burrowed into the space between his shoulder and his neck, and whenever they had movie night, she laid across of his chest and curled into him while the picture flickered on his TV. Sometimes she would lay a hand on top of his knee, especially when they were interviewed. But she never really touched him unless they were skating, and even then, it wasn't _touching_.

 

"Is everything alright, Charlie? If you're tired, we'll call it a day. The opening looks stunning. You have wonderful lines. We'll work a little bit more on the lift tomorrow, and by Friday it's going to be perfect. You'll do great in LA, I know it."

 

Charlie just shook his head. He had rushed during the foxtrot, and he'd dropped Sharna in one of their lifts. If Marina were here, she would be cursing in Russian holding his gold medal over his head for motivation, and Meryl would have been on her side, too.

 

"Thanks. Uh…let's do a few more run-throughs though. I just want to try that lift again."

 

Sharna gave him her most dazzling, encouraging smile and walked across the floor to her IPod. "Sure, a few more times shouldn't hurt!"

 

He stood and held her in a closed position, facing the mirror, and running through their steps in his mind.

 

Only a few more hours to go.

 

Then he could go hang out with _Meryl._

 

* * *

 

 

"So what you do when you don't skate?", Maks asked.

 

"School…mostly.",  Meryl huffed  out. He had her bent back in a deep dip, and her hair hung loose scraping the floor of their practice studio. Practicing with Maks wasn't nearly as bad as she'd heard it would be online.

 

He was strong and fast, and as expected, had little tolerance for missteps and amateur mistakes, even though he was technically working with an amateur.

 

His work ethic rivaled even Charlie's a week before Nationals, and Meryl would be lying if she said she wasn't enjoying having someone else pick apart the mistakes and order her into improvement for once. It felt good to have an entirely new goal to work for…but sometimes Maks could step over the line.

 

 _No, not_ the _line,_ Meryl reminded herself. Maks wasn't being inappropriate. _He's only stepping over the line you have with_ Charlie.

 

"Really? I bet you're smart girl." He swung her up and forward in front of the mirror. "What you will do after skating? Marry Charlie?" Maks released her from the hold and laughed as Meryl's eyes widened.

 

"I-"

 

"Yes, you have boyfriend, I know. Just joking. Loosen up little bit, Meryl. It will help with the dancing."

 

Maks spun away, across the studio so he could turn down their music and grab their water bottles. "I think you are too serious. This is only dancing for TV. Not Olympics."

 

He laid an arm over her shoulders and squeezed, much tighter than she was used to. "Only audience here is Dave, the cameraman.", he said, pointing at the corner where Dave, his tripod, and a card table where Dave's laptop was, open to a screen where he was reading articles from the LA Times. Dave waved at both of them and grinned.

 

"Hey, Meryl!"

 

Meryl sighed. Dave had a little bit of a crush on her, and while he was pretty cute for a film school dropout, she was definitely not available. "How's it going, Dave?"

 

"Cool!"

 

"See, he like you. You want to make _all_ of America like you like Dave over there. Make them see you as a funny, sweet, girl so they will vote for you." Maks' voice had dropped, so that she had to strain to hear him. "When editor goes through Dave's camera, you want him to see that. You don't want on TV parts where you are serious, closed-off girl. Then you are gone in first week. Be funny, be silly. If you look stupid, people like stupid."

 

Meryl chewed on the inside of her cheek. "Yeah, I know.", she answered, her eyes trained to the smooth floor of the studio. She already knew what it was like to get the villain edit, and _Dancing With The Stars_ definitely had more viewers than _Tessa and Scott_.

 

"So next time we run through dance, I want smile on your face and body should be open. You do not want to be cold and boring _ice queen_." 

 

"Stop that."

 

"I'm too close? Sorry." He pulled away from her let his arm drop by his side.

 

" _No…stop trying to get in my head_.", Meryl said, quietly, but firmly enough that she surprised herself.

 

"But this how you and Charlie win, right? By connecting in your mind? I read that."

 

Meryl clenched her hand, newly manicured nails digging into her palms. "No, that's not what Charlie does _at all_." She hated to bring him into this.

 

"Really? So he just lets you wear the pants in your relationship?"

 

"No. We-", Meryl paused to let out a deep sigh. It wasn't that Maks was rude to her face (at least she didn't think so), it was only that he tried her patience whenever he opened his mouth. "We have a plan. So we don't have disagreements."

 

It wasn't entirely untrue, but something told Meryl explaining she and Charlie's relationship to _some egotistical pretty boy who would never-_

 

Meryl buried that thought."Let's…let's sit down and write out own plan. So that we never argue and we can just focus on the…dancing."

 

"A plan." Maks stifled a laugh. "You're funny girl. But why not?"

 

Meryl huffed.  Only a few more hours to go.

 

Then she could hang out with _Charlie._

 

* * *

 

 

Charlie was lying on his bed in his teenage bedroom, exhausted, a pillow held over his face. He and Sharna had gone over their whole routine at least a dozen more times, until she'd been the one to call it a day. It still wasn't perfect. He wobbled on the lift and her steps were just a little bit too fast. But as long as she thought it was good enough, they were good to go home. Meryl never stopped until they were perfect. Then, they tweaked the program until every bit of perfection was on display for the judges, not masked enough so they wouldn't pay attention.

 

He hated to say it, but he missed Meryl, even though they'd only really been apart for…six hours, according to his clock.

 

Charlie's mom had kept up his room even when he moved out to live with the guys. At some point in the past few years, his old 24-inch box had been replaced with a wall-mounted flat-screen, and the bed had somehow grown from a twin to a queen and been outfitted in crisp sheets from the Ralph Lauren catalog, instead of a Spiderman bedspread. Still, his old Novice and Junior titles were displayed on a shelf above his desk, where the books he'd read as a kid were neatly stacked beside a desktop Mac. Thankfully, she hadn't  changed that much around.

 

His parents had said they were going out for the night, and left him with a grilled salmon, half of his leftover Olympic celebration cake, and two bottles each of Gatorade and beer. At least, that's what he'd found in the fridge that he was willing to put in his mouth. He heard the front door swing open, and the sound of shoes being slipped off and placed in the family's shoe rack, and socked feet trudging up the stairs.

 

"Mom?", he called. No, the footsteps were too light and quick.

 

"Avery?"

 

His niece was just nine, but she and his sister and her husband lived just a couple of blocks away, so sometime she would run over.

 

"It's Meryl." He felt her familiar weight sink down beside him on the bed.

 

"Do you think I'm a bitch? Be honest.", she asked.

 

 Charlie grimaced under the pillow before tossing it aside and sitting up to face her. Her hair was undone, and she was toying with the hairband around her wrist.  " _God,  Meryl._ Didn't I tell you to stop looking at the stupid comments on your Instagram and the dumbasses on Twitter already? Of course you're not a bitch."

 

"Well do you think people might…the rest of the country might think I am? On camera? Maks told me I was  kind of being a little cold, and I don't want to get voted off-"

 

"Shut up. Meryl, _just shut up_."

 

Charlie raked his hands through his hair, which was limp and unwashed since he'd just gotten home. Their eyes met, and a silent conversation ensued. This was them.

 

 _It's how being partners is_ supposed _to work,_ Charlie thought.

 

"Well, I guess.", Meryl murmured.

 

She and Charlie had communicated like this forever.

 

"Yeah, and at least you stood up to him."

 

"You don't think it's weird?"

 

He curled up against the headboard to make more room for Meryl on the bed, and she slid in beside him as he fished for the remote between his pillows.

 

"Right. Respect is the most important thing."

 

Charlie nodded, and squeezed her hand. She was burrowed into his side, flicking through the channels.

 

"I know, but I don't want Sharna to think I'm nuts. I'm the cool, laid-back dude. And I wanna have fun.", he complained. Meryl patted his chest.

 

They had stumbled upon a Harry Potter marathon on cable, and were settling into a scene from the sixth movie, just after Fred and George made their escape from Hogwarts. He popped the tab from a bottle of beer, took a deep swig, and handed it to his partner. He and Meryl had never been big drinkers, and gagged in unison. Even when they were at school, they'd never partied that much, and usually relegated themselves to driving their friends home after a night out. Marina skinned her hungover skaters alive, and even though he and Meryl were almost getting invitations for their 10-year reunions, they knew exactly when the high school parties were by how crazy Marina would go on her junior teams.

 

It hit Charlie then, that now, maybe after the next couple of months, they could do those things. Meryl could finally go to her sorority keggers and he could get hammered with his older brother in the Detroit Red Wings Fan Zone. They could pig out everyday and sleep in until noon. Meryl would travel and get her year of studying abroad, and he could start applying to law schools. There were so many things that he'd never realized-

 

"We are _so_ not like Fred and George, Meryl. That's not okay. It'll never happen. I have both my ears and that's just so wrong."

 

"I wasn't serious. I just meant, we kind of have this twin connection thing going." Meryl chuckled, and shook her head as Harry and his friends disappeared into a dark corridor.

 

"Oh. Yeah, I guess so. Have you ever thought Marina and Bellatrix would kind of get along?"

 

"Charlie! She's our coach!"

 

"Yeah, but still. I think Marina would be a good Death Eater. She's got the work ethic, you know?", Charlie wondered aloud.

 

Meryl batted him lightly upside the head. "Did you even read the books?"

 

"I saw all the movies."

 

" _Charlie!_ "

 

* * *

 

 

Later, they had lapsed into a comfortable silence, having finished the movie, gone downstairs to split the salmon and cake, and returned to Charlie's bedroom. Meryl was sitting cross-legged in his desk chair, and Charlie was lying on the floor, watching his old solar system mobile.

 

"Yeah, I think our thing is really special, too.", he said aloud, looking up to see her smile.

 

 The mobile spun slowly, a cool breeze from his half-open window blowing Saturn into Jupiter.

 

An entire universe ended while Meryl twirled her hair around her finger, and Charlie could hardly bring himself to notice.


End file.
